SEALAB I, II, and
III were experimental underwater habitats
developed by the United States Navy
to prove the viability of saturation diving
and humans living in isolation for extended
periods of time. The knowledge gained from
the SEALAB expeditions helped advance the
science of deep sea diving
and rescue,
and contributed to the understanding of the
psychological and physiological strains
humans can endure.

SEALAB I

SEALAB
I was lowered off the coast of Bermuda
in 1964 to a depth of 58 m (192 feet of
seawater (fsw)) below the sea's surface. It
was constructed from two converted floats
and held in place with axles
from railroad cars.
The experiment involved four divers (LCDR
Robert Thompson, MC; Gunners Mate First
Class Lester Anderson, Chief Quartermaster
Robert A. Barth, and Chief Hospital Corpsman
Sanders Manning), who were to stay submerged
for three weeks. The experiment was halted
after 11 days due to an approaching tropical storm.

SEALAB I is now on display at The Museum of
Man In the Sea, in Panama City Beach,
Florida, near where it was initially tested
offshore before being deployed. It is on
outdoor display. Its metal hull is largely
intact, though the paint is faded to a brick
red. The interior has been largely stripped
and deteriorated, as well as subjected to
graffiti.

SEALAB II

SEALAB
II was launched in 1965, and unlike SEALAB
I, it included hot showers and refrigeration.
It was placed in the La Jolla Canyon
off the coast of California,
at a depth of 62 m. On August 28, 1965, the
first of three teams of divers moved into
what became known as the “Tilton Hilton” (Tiltin'
Hilton, because of the slope of the landing
site).

Tuffy the dolphin delivered
supplies to SEALAB II

Each team
spent 15 days in the habitat, but aquanaut/astronautScott Carpenter
remained below for a record 30 days. In
addition to physiological testing (described
in the book by Radloff & Helmreich), the
divers tested new tools, methods of salvage,
and an electrically heated drysuit.They were aided by a bottlenose dolphin
named Tuffy from the U.S. Navy Marine
Mammal Program,
who ferried supplies from the surface.

A sidenote
from SEALAB II was a congratulatory telephone
call that was arranged for Carpenter and
President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Carpenter was calling from a decompression
chamber with helium
gas replacing nitrogen,
so Carpenter sounded unintelligible to
operators. The tape of the call
circulated for years among Navy divers
before it was aired on NPR
in 1999. [see the bottom of this page]

click to
enlarge

SEALAB III

SEALAB
III used a refurbished SEALAB II habitat,
but was placed in water three times as deep.
Five teams of nine divers
were scheduled to spend 12 days each in the
habitat, testing new salvage techniques and
conducting oceanographic
and fishery
studies.Preparations for such a
deep dive were extensive. In addition to
many biomedical
studies, work-up dives were conducted at the
U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit at the
Washington D.C.
Navy Yard. These “dives” were not done in
the open sea, but in a special
hyperbaric chamber
that could recreate the pressures at depths
as great as 1,025 fsw (312 m).

SEALAB III

According to
John Craven,
the US Navy's head of the Deep Submergence
Systems Project
of which Sealab was a part, Sealab III "was
plagued with strange failures at the very
start of operations". On February 15, 1969,
SEALAB III was lowered to 610 fsw (185 m),
off San Clemente Island,
California. The habitat soon began to leak
and six divers were sent to repair it, but
they were unsuccessful. Tragically, during
the second attempt, aquanaut Barry Cannon
died. It was later found that his breathing
apparatus was missing baralime,
the chemical necessary to remove carbon dioxide.
According to Craven, while the other five
divers were undergoing the week-long
decompression, repeated attempts were made
to sabotage their air supply by someone
onboard the command barge. Eventually, a
guard was posted on the decompression
chamber and the men were recovered safely. A
potentially unstable suspect was identified
by the staff psychiatrist but the culprit
was never prosecuted. Craven suggests this
may have been done to spare the Navy bad
press so soon after the USS Pueblo
incident. The SEALAB program came to a halt,
and although the habitat was retrieved, it
was eventually scrapped. Aspects of the
research continued in classified military
programs,
but no new habitats were built.

NCEL of
Port Hueneme, CA (now a part of NFESC),
was responsible for the handling of several
contracts involving life support systems
used on SEALAB III.

Producer Larry Massett shares a found piece of
tape. It's a rare
recording of the
President of the United
States from 1964. At the
time, the US Navy had a
project called "SeaLab."

The Navy was
experimenting with
sending divers to deeper
and deeper depths for
longer and longer
periods of time. One of
these divers- the former
astronaut Scott
Carpenter- has just set
a world record: he's
spent thirty days in the
ocean at a depth of 200
feet.

A
pre-arranged phone call
to the White House is
planned. The idea is to
have President Lyndon
Johnson offer Commander
Carpenter a formal
congratulation. This is
a purely ceremonial
call. It should be
cut-and-dried. But
there's a bizarre
problem. Commander
Carpenter is no longer
underwater; he's in a
decompression chamber.
He's breathing air in
which nitrogen- the gas
which can give people
the bends- has been
replaced by helium.
Helium is harmless, but
it distorts the voice.
When he speaks,
Commander Carpenter
sounds like Mickey
Mouse.